Thursday, March 28, 2013

Freelancing From Home

If you
have skills as a designer, writer, programmer, translator, or other business
related tasks you can market your services, find work, submit your work and get
paid online.The internet has opened up
the world for online workers.This
presents a challenge for American workers where our cost of living is high and
we have to compete with workers in countries where the cost of living is very
low.However, when understanding and using
correct English is essential, an employer may opt to pay more for a native
English speaker.

I’ve
been investigating the two most popular sites for finding freelance work, Elance
and oDesk.Both work in very similar
ways, and there are differences and pros and cons of each.

What does it cost to use Elance
& oDesk?

Elance
memberships have four levels; the lowest level is free but limits the number of
skills you can show on your profile page and the number of proposals for jobs
you can make per month.oDesk is free to
join, but there is a limit to the number of proposals a new member can make,
that limit will be lifted after the member has taken a number of skills tests.

Even
though oDesk is free to join, you will pay a commission on what you earn on the
site.oDesk takes 10% of your
earnings.Elance takes their cut as
well, their commission is 8.75%.

Getting Started—Setting up your
Profile

When
you join one of these sites you first set up a profile where you list relevant
data about yourself, your skills and experiences; it's like an online
resume.You can also post examples of
your work for potential clients to see.One difference between the 2 sites is that Elance has a limit on the
number of skills you can display on your profile page based on your membership
level.

Both
sites offer numerous skills tests that you can take and post the results on
your profile page.Both sites probably
have the same number of skills tests but Elance has the edge in this area
because their tests are neatly organized by category, making it easier to find
the tests you want to take.

Searching for a job

You can
search for jobs by category, keyword or skill on either site.Job postings give a description of the job,
the pay range either as an hourly rate or fixed price, when the job was posted,
and some additional information about the client.Again Elance has a better feature on their
job postings; the posting includes how many proposals were already made and
what the bid prices were.This
information allows you to decide whether to make your own proposal and at what
price.

Applying for a job

On both
sites there will be a link to submit a proposal for each job.The proposal should include your ideas for
the project, how your skills and experience match those needed to complete the
job and what you propose to charge for your services.

After
receiving your proposal the client may ask for an interview either by phone, skype
or online.Details about the project,
pay and timelines for completing the work can be hammered out at that time.

Doing the work

Each
site has their own method of tracking the work that contractors do.Elance uses “milestones” where the worker
records & uploads each phase of the project for the client to review.oDesk has an online work tracker that the
contractor must download to their computer.This software takes screenshots while the worker is logged in and
working on the job, it also allows the worker to record work at different
phases.Some workers see this as
intrusive, but it does allow the client to be assured that the contractor is
working during the time being billed.Thus the work tracker is required for jobs that are paid hourly, but is
optional for fixed fee jobs.

Getting Paid

Once
the worker submits the final job the client is allowed a certain number of days
to review the work and approve it.If
approved the money is added to your
account, which you can withdraw according to each company’s policies.

Elance
has an escrow system that helps ensure that freelancers are paid for fixed
price jobs.The client puts the money in
the escrow account and the contractor does not start work until the money is
deposited there.Once the job is
approved, the money is released to the contractor.oDesk does not have any guarantee that a
contractor will be paid on fixed price jobs.Both Elance and oDesk guarantee payment when you use their work tracking
systems.

Both Elance
and oDesk provide dispute resolution services, they want the work to go
smoothly to the benefit of all parties.

Feedback System

Both
sites have feedback systems where clients can review the work of their
contractors and vice versa.This helps
contractors know who are the best clients to work for and clients have more
information to help them choose the right contractor for the job.It is always a problem for a new client or
contractor to break into the system with no feedback so a new contractor may
have to agree to work for a low rate and do a terrific job in order to build up
some good feedback.

There
are pro’s and con’s to each site.From
looking through some of the jobs available it seems that there are more high
quality jobs on Elance, but that may not be true for every category of
work.Some people (me included) might
not feel comfortable with screenshots being taken every 6 minutes like the oDesk
work tracker does.As a writer, I spend
time thinking and researching the topic before I begin writing, nothing will
show in a screen shot of that, yet I’m still working.But from a client’s perspective, they might
like the security of knowing that they are getting the work they pay for.

The
best jobs are going to go to the contractors that have been working on these
sites for a while and have built up a good track record of work, so a new
worker will be at a disadvantage.An
American worker will also be at a disadvantage because our cost of living is so
much higher than workers in other countries, who can bid much lower for jobs.I think this is less of a problem for writers because foreign workers
usually do not have the English communication skills that an American or UK
writer will, but for web design or programming the language won’t matter as
long as the client and contractor can communicate effectively.

I haven't joined either site yet so I don't have any actual experience working for them. It would be great to hear from readers who have experience with either Elance, oDesk or a similar site. Please leave a comment if you'd like to share your experiences.

1 comment:

The only problem with Elance is that American companies that post will hire the foreign contractors because they will do web design or admin work for $3 bucks an hour. The only way I got work was I reduced my rate to 3 bucks an hour. As an American, i was basically working for free.

About Me

I'm a library paraprofessional with a Master's Degree in Psychology, researcher, blogger and part-time webpreneur. Working for state government is not as secure as it used to be, so supplemental income is needed. I'm investigating and trying out a number of work-at-home ideas that I'll be discussing in Leaving Low Wages. Because we get stuck from time to time, I've started Action Does It so we can all learn some motivational techniques together.
Your comments are welcome, the more people we have contributing ideas the smarter we all will be.